The Bitter Taste of Humble Pie!

I am writing this post to all of you who may have purchased my pastry book as well as all of my fellow cook book authors as a cautionary word of advice. A few weeks ago as I began to prepare some cream puffs at home to fill with ice cream for my wife Brigitte’s birthday, I was horrified to find a printed math extension error in the basic recipe, pate a choux on page 58 of my book “Pastry and Dessert Techniques”. The book is designed to yield three sizes in all of the basic recipes which result in small, medium, and large batches. In the recipe for pate a choux, the medium batch (which is the one that I used frequently for more than 25 years) is correct however the small (base) and large batch has the incorrect amount of butter listed. The correction should be as follows: the base batch should read ½ cup of butter and the large batch should read 4 pounds of butter. I apologize to anyone who may have purchased my book and prepared one of the incorrect batches, only to find out they didn’t puff up properly. As the saying goes the “Devil is in the Details” and all of my fellow cook book authors and chefs know this to be true. For a reprinted correction of the page please go to the link: http://www.atperesources.com/products/PDT/update/PDT02_page58.pdf

Trio of Eclairs made with Pate a Choux- Photo by Madeline Beyer.